Part 13 (1/2)
”No,” Nettles dismissed. ”It's something else.”
”It's Cyrillic,” Marjorie identified. Seeing the vacant expression on Jackson's face, she then paraphrased, ”Russian. Judging from the light color of the jade, I'd guess that it's also Russian, most likely from the Lake Baikal region.”
Simultaneously, the three men turned their attention from the necklace to Marjorie.
”The heroine in my novel, Slaughter in Samara, wore a ring made of the stuff. It was a great story, but since Samara isn't Samara any longer, my publisher pulled it from the shelves. Shame, really. I consider it one of my best.”
”Miss McClell-er, Mrs. Ashcroft!” There was a sharp edge to Jackson's voice. ”What are you doing here?”
”You mean what am I doing, aside from sharing my depth and breadth of seemingly useless information which has, so far, saved you and your men countless hours that might have been spent a.n.a.lyzing crime scene evidence? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Jackson quietly pa.s.sed the necklace back to Worth and, with an exaggerated smile and a wide sweep of his arms, motioned toward the door. ”After you.”
Marjorie curtsied slightly and proceeded through the cottage door.
As Marjorie sashayed past him, Jackson lifted his leg to kick her in the rear, but, thinking better of it, stepped over the threshold instead.
”h.e.l.lo?” Marjorie called into the dimly lit dwelling.
”Mrs. Marjorie?” a weak voice answered.
She followed the sound to a small back bedroom. There, they found Selina, lying in a single bed, her head propped against two cotton-encased pillows.
”Hi, Selina,” Marjorie greeted. ”How are you feeling?”
Selina reached for the younger woman's hand. ”I'm all right, child. I'm just sorry to have put everyone to so much trouble. I remember screaming and Mr. Creighton trying to calm me. He gave me brandy. Lord, now I know why I stick to rum. It's suppertime and I've only just woken up.” She shook her head. ”And all you poor people fussing over me.”
”We liked fussing over you for a change. And you weren't any trouble. You were shocked and scared,” Marjorie said softly. ”Anyone would have been, given what you had seen.”
”I went to the dining room that morning to clean up the dishes from the night before. I didn't pay much attention to anything else around me. When I had finished with the dishes, I swept up the broken gla.s.s and came back with a mop to clean up the wine. That's when I saw the blood,” Selina recounted. ”Lots of blood. I should have left the lid closed ... I should have ...” She covered her eyes as if doing so would block the memory of her gruesome discovery.
”Don't think of it,” Marjorie instructed as she clutched Selina's hand with both of hers. ”Put it out of your mind now.”
Selina closed her eyes and grasped Marjorie's hands tightly. ”I will, child. You're a good soul. No wonder Mr. Creighton loves you.” She opened her eyes and scanned the faces of the two men in the room. ”Where is he? Where is Mr. Creighton?”
”Sergeant Jackson here has him locked up under suspicion of murder,” Marjorie punctuated the statement with a dirty look in the sergeant's direction.
”Why? Because he was so angry? That boy and his father ...” Selina shook her head ruefully. ”Now that Mr. Ashcroft is gone, I need to talk to you about that, child. All the pain in Mr. Creighton's heart, it's all over nothing.”
”Well, we can talk later,” Marjorie a.s.sured. ”But right now Sergeant Jackson and Inspector Nettles need to speak with you.”
”All right Mrs. Marjorie, I'll talk to them, so long as I can talk to you in private later. Because you need to tell Mr. Creighton that not everything he thinks about his father is true.”
”It isn't, eh?” Jackson goaded. ”I suppose that's why you were so in love with the man.”
”I was in love with Richard ... Mr. Ashcroft, yes,” Selina admitted. ”But that was years ago. Before he pushed love aside in the name of making more money.”
”Pushed love aside? Mr. Ashcroft just remarried, didn't he?”
”Oh,” Selina waved the notion aside in annoyance. ”He didn't marry her for love. He married her for the same reason a man buys a pair of diamond cuff links. To prove that he can.”
”Sounds to me like you were jealous of the new Mrs. Ashcroft,” Jackson surmised.
”When I first heard of his marriage to Mrs. Griselda, I must admit my heart did sink. It's nice, after a love affair, to believe that your beloved could never find another soul to replace you. I lived under that belief for eighteen years,” Selina frowned. ”But when Mr. Ashcroft arrived here in April, and he announced his upcoming marriage, I was not sad. I was not jealous. He was no longer the same person I fell in love with years ago; he had changed. And so, I suppose, had I.”
”Oh?” Jackson prompted Selina to continue.
”I had raised a child on my own. Of course, Mr. Ashcroft paid me my wages and gave me a stipend for George's clothes and shoes, but I handled the day-to-day living: the illnesses, the bullies, the schoolyard fights, the homework, the ch.o.r.es. And there were the small celebrations too: the good report cards, the first school dance, and now, his graduation.” Selina smiled proudly. ”Nothing takes away your romantic notions faster than raising a child alone, but nothing else makes you realize that, apart from giving you a beautiful boy, perhaps you didn't need that man around in the first place.”
”You may not have needed that man around,” Jackson prefaced, ”but you needed his money, didn't you? You needed his money to send that 'beautiful boy' to university.”
”I didn't need the money,” Selina said defiantly. ”I would have found a way to get it ... eventually. But I didn't want George to wait. All his friends were making plans, moving forward with their lives. Why shouldn't he? Those children are no better than my son.”
”So you asked Mr. Ashcroft for the money,” Nettles put forth.
”Yes. He was always proud of his boys' education. He had sent both Mr. Creighton and Mr. Edward to some of the finest schools in England and the United States. Expensive schools. So, I didn't think that paying for George to go to university-a less-expensive, colored university-would have bothered him so much.”
”But it did,” Marjorie stated.
”Yes, it did. He was outraged. He felt that he had already done enough for me and a son he ... he ... never wanted. He said that sending a b.a.s.t.a.r.d to university didn't make him any less of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” Selina broke down.
Jackson offered her a handkerchief from inside his jacket.
Selina took the handkerchief and blew her nose loudly. After a few seconds she continued her story. ”I went mad, I think, when he said that. I became possessed. I started hitting him, pounding him on the chest. I swore I would tell everyone that he was George's father.”
”How did he react?” Marjorie asked.
”He smiled. Not a nice smile, but the smile someone makes when they are up to something. Then he took me by the wrists, pushed me away, and left the room.”
”And when did this occur?” Nettles questioned as he jotted notes into his notebook.
”Day before yesterday. George had picked them up in Hamilton that morning and, during the boat ride over, Mr. Ashcroft offered him a permanent job here on the island. While Mrs. Ashcroft unpacked their things and got settled in, Mr. Ashcroft came to see me here at the cottage. He wanted to tell me about the generous offer he had made,” Selina gave a wry laugh.
”Did you speak of the incident again?” Jackson inquired.
”No, not until last night, at dinner, when Mr. Ashcroft made his announcement. Despite my threats, he knew I wouldn't have told anyone. I've spent the past eighteen years keeping that secret, telling everyone that I married a boat captain and that George was a product of our wedding night. I've spent the past eighteen years lying to my boy, because I didn't want to disgrace him. Mr. Ashcroft knew that and he used it to punish me.”
”How did you feel?”
”I was furious,” Selina answered frostily. ”To tell it to the family that way was bad enough, but for George to find out like that-in front of everyone-Richard may as well have stabbed me in the heart.”
”And so you wanted to stab him in his heart,” Jackson proposed. ”Or perhaps just grab the closest heavy object and hit him over the head.”
”I did not!” Selina sat upright. ”I swear to G.o.d I did not kill that man.”
”No? But you wanted to,” Jackson provoked.
”Yes, I wanted to,” Selina admitted. ”Wouldn't you? George is all I've ever had. I put my whole life into that boy and with a few words he had taken it all away.”
”So you killed him,” Jackson hypothesized. ”You were filled with rage-not yourself. You stuffed him into the trunk before someone saw him there and then went to bed for the night. When you awoke you wondered if it had all been a dream; a terrible dream. But then you walked into the dining room and saw the blood. You screamed with the realization that it was all true. You had murdered Mr. Ashcroft. You had stuffed his body into the-”